James Spader Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Review: Shorts
Filed under: Action », Comedy », Sci-Fi & Fantasy », New Releases », Warner Brothers », Theatrical Reviews », Family Films »
I'm spoiled. As a kid, I woke up with Beanie and Cecil and Rocky and Bullwinkle, gobbled down Looney Tunes, Merry Melodies, Speed Racer and Gigantor after school, and passed the early evening hours with The Flintstones and The Jetsons. Even as an uneducated child, I knew the ones with replay value and the ones that quickly grew tiresome. As an adult, I know the ones that still hold up and the ones that make me embarrassed to admit I ever watched them.
That brings me in a roundabout way to Robert Rodriguez' new, live-action film Shorts. Funny, inventive, and very, very clever in micro-bursts of six to eight seconds, Shorts becomes tiresome over the length of its 89-minute running time. I couldn't shake the feeling that it would have been better-suited as a weekly television show, chopped up into brief segments with plenty of commercial breaks in between. Shorts could just as easily have been called "Six Short Sketches in Search of a Synopsis," but then the title would be longer than its attention span.
Aimed squarely at kids, Shorts may, perhaps, please the modern sensibility of today's sub-teens, but I suspect the well has run dry for Rodriguez and family films. The Spy Kids franchise devolved in entertainment value from the first installment to the third, and The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl was an unfortunate mess. Rodriguez has built a cottage industry based on a scattershot approach to filmmaking. He's always been a "shoot [film] first, ask [narrative] questions later" kind of director / writer / photographer / editor / composer / visual effects artist. That doesn't serve him well with Shorts.
James Spader Remembers John Hughes
Filed under: Comedy », Drama », Romance », Interviews »
James Spader returns to the villain roles that made him famous in Shorts, the new family film by writer-director Robert Rodriguez. But during the film's recent press day, the star of such '80s classics as Pretty in Pink and Less Than Zero took a moment to reflect on his experiences working with John Hughes, who passed away last week at the age of 59.
"I actually was very lucky on [Pretty in Pink]," Spader said during a roundtable interview on Saturday. "John [Hughes] wrote and produced that film; Howard Deutch directed it, and it was just such fun. That was a picture where John was on the set every day, I was living in New York at the time and I was out here on my own, and John and I got along really well."
"He'd invite me over to the house a lot on weekends to have lunch with his family," he continued. "He had a big family, and they would all be jumping around in the pool and stuff. He had a very odd writing affect – he wrote at night, long after the rest of the family had gone to bed – and I've always been a night person."
Obviously not everyone's memories of Hughes and his films are as intimate, but what do you remember most about the iconic writer-director? A scene? A movie? Let us know!
Cinematical Seven: Our Favorite Sex Creeps
Filed under: Fandom », Cinematical Seven », Lists »
For some reason best left to psychologists, there are people who are attracted to what I call ... sex creeps. This type of character goes beyond what is called jolie-laide in women, a term that directly translates to pretty-ugly, although is generally used to describe "unconventional" beauty. There's no real correlation between the jolie-laide and the sex creep. No, the sex creep is attractive but prone to certain, shall we say, peccadilloes that go beyond the pale -- dating blow-up dolls, crashing cars to get off, dabbling in experimental gynecology. These guys all slime their ways between the lines.
In any case, here are seven of my favorite sex creeps. You might also notice there's a certain director who shows up a few times on the list -- he's an honorary sex creep as well. I hope he takes his title in the complimentary manner in which it's given.
Jon Cryer and James Spader Try On Robert Rodriguez's 'Shorts'
Filed under: Action », Casting », Family Films »
Back in March, Jessica shared a script review for Robert Rodriguez's next film -- not the still-suffering Barbarella, but rather Shorts -- a quirky family adventure movie. Now, finally, we've got the cast in place. The Hollywood Reporter posts that Jon Cryer and James Spader have jumped on board, joining William H. Macy, Leslie Mann, Jimmy Bennett, Kat Dennings, Trevor Gagnon, Leo Howard, Devon Gearhart, Jake Short, Jolie Vanier, and Rodriguez's super-cute offspring, Rebel Rodriguez.The descriptions of the movie on THR and the script review are a little different, but the basic gist of the film is about a magic rock in a suburb where everyone works for the Black Box company. Kids find this rainbow-colored rock that grants wishes, and go a bit nuts with it before the adults get their hands on it and things get even crazier. Bennett plays the protagonist, Toe Jackson, Cryer and Mann play his parents, and Dennings plays his older sister. Spader, meanwhile, plays Mr. Black, and Macy plays "the father of a germphobic genius," which I imagine makes him Dr. Noseworthy. If Robert pulls this off with the same spark that Spy Kids held, this could be one fun flick.
Per usual, Rodriguez is involved in many aspects of the film -- he wrote it, is producing with ex Elizabeth Avellan, and will be director of photography, editor, and visual effects supervisor. According to Variety, production is just gearing up in Austin.
The Latest Poster for Hugh Jackman's 'Deception'
Filed under: Thrillers », 20th Century Fox », Movie Marketing », Posters »
You know that feeling you get when something looks so familiar but you just can't put your finger on it? Well, that's how I felt after I saw the latest poster release for Marcel Langenegger's, Deception (see to the right, and click to enlarge). After a furious search to try and figure out just what it was about the poster that was so familiar, I came up empty. Luckily, the sharp eyes over at the Ropes of Silicon boards noticed the poster was almost identical to The Prestige.Ewan McGregor stars as Jonathan, a buttoned down accountant who is swept up in a mysterious sex club called 'The List'. Hugh Jackman plays his lawyer friend who leads Jonathan down the 'rabbit hole' involving a missing girl and a million dollar fraud. There aren't that many differences between this latest poster release and the previous release -- in fact, there are only a few minor differences. The most noticeable being that Jackman had a lot more real estate on the first poster than he does now. On the upside, we actually get to see McGregor's face this time around.
After watching the trailer, I'll admit that there is no way I would see this film if Jackman and McGregor were not starring (it just has a late night, skinemax vibe). Plus, the film bears a striking resemblance to the 1990 thriller Bad Influence (it even looks like McGregor borrowed James Spader's glasses). Deception is set for release on April 25th, and I can't help but wonder if Fox released this poster in hopes of drumming up some much-needed business.
Stars in Rewind: The Turf is Tuff for James Spader and Robert Downey Jr.
Filed under: Fandom », Trailers and Clips », Stars in Rewind »
These days, James Spader makes a lot of big speeches, smokes cigars, and often has sleepovers with William Shatner, while Robert Downey Jr. is a hero whose suit is armor rather than spandex. Oh, but the good old days... Even before Spader was the ultra-jerk Steff in Pretty in Pink, and Downey Jr. got mixed up in some Weird Science, the pair fought on some Tuff Turf.
I've never seen the film, but I am absolutely in love with the trailer above. It's just perfect -- the ridiculous outfits, silly scenes, and terribly tacky voiceover. In fact, I don't know if the film could even live up to the brilliant crappiness of this trailer. The flick follows Morgan (Spader), a guy who moves to Connecticut for his senior year and falls for the girlfriend of a local gang leader. "They can't shut him down, and they can't cool him off." Ah, he was such a stud.
Enjoy the clip, and if you've seen the movie, please tell me what you think of it below!
More Stargate -- And Not the MacGyver Kind
Filed under: Action », Sci-Fi & Fantasy », MGM », RumorMonger », Newsstand », Remakes and Sequels »
In the middle of what was surely a really boring roundtable about his sure-to-be really boring movie Flyboys (James Franco, I love you, but you can't act), producer Dean Devlin dropped some news that is sure to have Stargate's surprisingly large fandom doing little alternate world dances of joy. Sort of confirming earlier rumors, Devlin said that Stargate was always viewed by its creators as the opening of a trilogy, but the studio's focus back in 1994 was on the TV series, so the sequels fell by the wayside. Now that the series has been so successful and there's been some turnover at MGM, though, the studio's interest in more movies has been renewed. Interestingly, Devlin says that the film's stars (Kurt Russell and James Spader) and director (Roland Emmerich) remain interested in doing the sequels -- and claims that Stargate 2 was always supposed to take place 12 years after the first one, so the age of the actors wouldn't be a problem. Well, isn't that a nice bit of
[via RT]
Is Taylor Lautner Our Next Superhero?
100 Greatest Films Beyond the Canon
'Entourage' Movie in the Works?
Spielberg Backs Out of 'Harvey'
Discuss: Should Gay Actors Stay in the Closet?
_thumbnail.jpg)
_thumbnail.jpg)
